The Last Thing
by ReadingMyOwnWay
Summary: Axel has to run, Roxas won't be left behind. Luckily, they are the same kind of insane and the mp3 gods favor them.  Also, Axel's car is HOT and Cloud is the best big brother ever. AkuRoku, Oneshot.


Hey all! You can all thank OwlPostAgain for this little bit of lovely. She introduced me to Transmit Now and opened my eyes to the glory of the one-shot heart wrencher. Now, this is nowhere as long as her stuff, nor is it as epic, but I hope you like it all the same.

**Song Suggestion: The Last Thing by Transmit Now. **(Here's a link to the audio. sheofsilence(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/18837575672/teaser-for-a-new-songfic-because-transmit-now-is)**  
><strong>

**Writer Suggestion: Reserved for Songs of Dissension by OwlPostAgain.** Eveeeentually, Owl will hopefully be posting a songfic for this song, focusing on SoKu. ALSO **I'm Gay by Kioko Yasu.** Why? Becasue it's awesome. Like she is.

Disclaimer: I in no way claim ownership of Axel or Roxas or Namine or Kairi or Sora from the Kingdom Hearts Saga, nor over Cloud or Squall Leonhart from FF, nor over Transmit Now's music. However, my thoughts and words are my own, and I like blood. Steal at your own risk. :D

I reserve the right to add to this at any time. Shout out to Kioko Yasu because she's yummy.

I hope you guys like it! Sorry if the semi-oc bothers anyone. Lea has always been a girls name, so Axel's twin, Lea, is a girl in my head. *bows* My humblest apologies to those this may annoy.

ReadingMyOwnWay, signing off~

* * *

><p>Roxas froze, hand poised to deliver his customary hey-I'm-here-so-it's-too-late-to-lock-me-out tap. He stared, raw shock overcoming all other thoughts for a long moment before it was roughly shoved aside by anger. He stormed into the room, past half packed boxes and naked walls, past the usual band and game posters littering the floor and the bottom of one mostly-empty box, not sparing them more then the passing glare as he stopped beside the bed. Not the bed, really, but the oblivious red-head stuffing tee-shirts into an overlarge canvas duffel bag with careful haste.<p>

"Axel." Roxas did not yell, did not rage. In fact, he addressed the other man in a completely _reasonable _tone. Axel froze, as tense as if Roxas HAD screamed at him. Dumping the half-folded shirt onto the bed, the red-head turned slowly, green eyes wide.

"Rox. Hey." Axel's voice was just a little too loud in the silent house.

"What the hell, Axel." His voice was calm, cool.

"Roxa—"

"Oh, so you got an offer? You've got to make that gig? So nice of you to _tell me_, Axel." His voice dropped, colder and softer, azure eyes darkening.

"Rox, it's not w—"

"Oh, it's NOT? Hey Rox, you got it all wrong. I'm NOT actually packing up everything I care about, I'm not actually _packing _my life into _boxes_ without saying anything to, to…" He'd started yelling, a hushed part of his mind commented. He ignored it. The room held its breath, silent but for the two of them breathing too loudly.

"Damn you Axel. You weren't gonna say anything, were you. Nothing. I'd come over tomorrow or Thursday and the room'd be empty and I'd. Be. Here. Damn you." Roxas snarled and shoved the lighter man back. Axel stumbled back onto the bed, green eyes wide with unconcealed panic. Roxas didn't so much as glare at him as the blonde man turned to walk out, staring with violent disgust as the semi-bare walls.

"Roxas…" It wasn't even a whisper, barely an exhale of sound, but Roxas stopped, hands fisted at his side.

Roxas stood still as death and twice as still as pale hands tangled in the back of his sweatshirt and a paler forehead pressed lightly against his back. Axel was shaking, Roxas realized distantly, the tremors of the red-head echoing the quaking of his own fists.

"What the hell, Ax." The words were soft, like frostbite.

"I—I can't. I can't do this." That warm voice was shaking, and it broke Roxas' heart even more then the half-packed duffel bag on the bed behind him. But if his heart was shattering, he couldn't feel it beneath the cold, cold, the icy raging calm trembling through his blood like a drug. He could neither think nor breathe, only feel.

He shook the redhead off him.

"You damned well better be there when I get back."

Roxas all but ran out of the room, slamming the front door and breaking into a flat-out sprint the moment his feet touched cement. He burned with an icy rage, but the coldness was fading and his eyes were starting to sting. The blonde threw himself onto his bed just as the last of the fortifying rage burned away. All the anger was gone from the blue eyes, tossed aside by the waves of building terror, waves that were steadily growing into a tsunami at the thought of Axel _leaving_. The terror engulfed him. Axel was leaving, leaving leaving gone, just like all those horrible dream-memories had promised. Gone, gone, fading, his mind was numb. He screamed. Raw terror burned its way up his throat, through his eyes. He'd said all the wrong things, he knew, and Axel was gone now, going a hundred miles an hour into nowhere and he was gone, gone, and he screamed himself hoarse into his pillow-that-smelled-like-Axel and Axel was leaving leaving fading oh god no. He was wailing with the unabashed violence of a child, yet he couldn't bring himself to care because his soul_ hurt _and oh, Axel, Axel, Axel…

.

Roxas had cried himself out.

The terror was still there, but the forced calm of a body that could cry no more prevailed. He sat up just long enough to grab his iPod from under the checkered comforter, then curled up into a tight ball of muscle and nerve and too-real too-fragile flesh. He felt so small, so very small and so frail.

Roxas drew a shaky breath, spinning the dial of his mp3 around tiredly. Namine joked that her mp3 was a channel for the music-gods, sending her 'intrinsic messages' via shuffle all. Even in his worn-out state, the thought coupled with his sister's voice made him grin weakly. Couldn't hurt to ask divine guidance. He clicked shuffle, curling up tighter and closing his eyes.

_"And I, don't, know what you want from me. I've been tossing and turning in, my bed, losing sleep over this, and I don't know what I need to do…"_

Maybe Nam was right and there was an iPod deity.

Thoughts began to form beneath the echoing rhythm, slowly, tiredly, the sorrow burned away like the anger. Thoughts fit themselves together. Axel was leaving. Roxas was too drained to feel the hopeless desperation. Axel _was_ leaving. He felt a solution working itself out, forming itself at the bottom of his soul sluggishly.

Roxas drew in a shaking breath. He could do this.

"_Listen up to me, I can be anything for you…"_

He could be anything, become anything. He could. He had to.

"_What would you say, what would you do, if I was to say, I'd waited for you?..."_

Blue eyes started open, staring at the iPod as if it contained the meaning of life, which, right here and right now, didn't seem unlikely. So simple. He hadn't thought… it was so simple. Axel couldn't stay. Axel was leaving. Roxas would leave with him.

"_Cus I won't be giving up, giving up on me and you. It's the last thing that I'd ever do…"_

Roxas wasn't the type to rush into things. Axel was. Roxas _thought_ about things, planned out every worst-case-scenario. He'd leave a note for Cloud. Sora would freak, but Cloud would get it. He had his portable wireless router and his laptop. This was looking surprisingly doable. Shockingly doable, actually. For the first time ever, Roxas was very glad he had no plans for the future, not the faintest idea of what he wanted to DO with his life, career-wise. It gave him a mental flexibility completely foreign to, say, a premed, and a physical mobility utterly impossible for someone with any cohesive plan for earning a living. A job though… he's have to think about that. Granted, he'd been thinking about it for the past however-many-years here at home, to no success. It's not like he could un-think an idea by running away with Axel…

Roxas fell asleep planning, a tight awkward lump of Transmit Now induced hope.

.

He started awake at 2:19 am to a dying iPod and an idea. Thank god Zexion was at that conference. It was… 8:30ish there? Good enough. The idiot-genius never fell prey to normal things like jet lag. Roxas pressed speed-dial 6 and waited, utterly alert with the adrenaline of the perfect idea. Zexion was his confidant, his stable, sane, logical ally in a world of lovable time-bombs. The calm reassuring voice answered from an ocean away, gloriously awake and with time to spare. Half an hour later Roxas collapsed back to sleep, with a relived smile on his lips and determination slipped behind his eyes.

This could work.

.

Kairi let him in quietly. Of course she was the only one up, the morning bird. He took the stairs three at a time to be caught staring at a closed door. Oh god. Images flashed through his mind, what if Axel really hadn't waited for him to come back, what if Axel had kept going, kept running, what if he was gone and out of reach and Roxas had taken too damn long to understand and—

-and a soft snore interrupted the impending panic attack. One blonde brow shot up. Axel never snored. Roxas gently tried the bedroom door, and finding it unlocked, slipped inside to catch the groan of bed-springs and a lanky blanket-mummy rolling over. Roxas crept into the room. It seemed, for the state of things, that the redhead did snore after a freak-out. The duffel bag had been thrown aside and, from the little bits of body sticking out of the blanket-bundle at awkward angles, his normally boxer-clad-sleeper of a boyfriend was still wearing last night's sweatshirt and jeans. The Logical Determined part of Roxas reached out a hand to wake the sleeping man but did nothing more than reach. Axel slept like a puppy unless Roxas was sleeping next to him, all flailing limbs atumble, and dammit, the man was too cute to wake. Axel wasn't leaving soon, from the state of the duffel bag and scattered clothing. Roxas' eyes softened. He kissed his fingertips lightly and brushed the fingers along the delicate jaw line. He could yell at Axel later.

.

His second try didn't work out either. The front door was locked and the blonde didn't have time to go get his key. The only reason he wasn't panicking was because Axel's baby was parked at the curb, sturdy reassurance built into every inch of the metallic red Explorer. Wherever Axel was, his wheels weren't, so Roxas could breathe.

.

"This is getting ridiculous."

The blonde glared at Axel's closed door as if it was personally offending him. Which it was. Not only was it closed, it was _locked_. He would definitely have panicked by now, he knew with an odd detachment, if he hadn't just finished taking Professor Luxord's midterm. Four hours. Four ungodly hours. His brain felt like mush. Smug, confidant mush, but mush none the less. One down, two to go. Roxas knew he should be freaking out, but he was just too drained.

Roxas stared at the door. He must have been standing there for, oh, close to eight minutes when his staring contest with the inanimate object was interrupted.

"Roxas?" The musical voice that was so like and so different then Axel's came from the copper-headed girl who had just stuck her head around the stairwell. "You still alive up here?" Lea glanced between the door and the too-tired-to-panic blonde. "Wanna wait for him downstairs?"

"Nah, I-I'll wait here, if it's ok."

Green-gold eyes widened. "Rox, why the sudden need to ask permission for _anything? _You've practically lived here for the past, oh, nine mont…" Axel's twin studied him slowly. Whatever signs of panic had worn their way through his exhaustion, she must have found them.

"It's Ax, isn't it." It wasn't a question. "You're all wound up, waiting like a blood hound outside Ax's door with eyes like the living dead..."

Silence stretched for a moment. The shorter, more mature twin sighed. "He's skipping town, is that it?"

Roxas could only nod mutely. Lea grabbed a spare blanket and pillow from the linen closet nestled into the stairway and tossed them at the man.

"Rox, listen to me." She spoke slowly, clearly, enunciating as though she could see just how close he was to breaking down. Maybe she could. She was scary like that. "When he leaves, he leaves his room unlocked and so tidy you'd think it was the guest room. Says he doesn't want to add fuel for Kairi's cleaning obsession. Doesn't say what he _means, _that he wants to leave my load as light as possible in case he… never makes it back."

"How many times has he _done _this?"

"First time, it was just for a week. He texted Mom from Riku's phone halfway through winter break, Riku who then lived two towns away, back in seventh grade. There were a couple small ones like that. He'd let Mom know, and she chose not to worry too much. The big one, though, that was five weeks before he graduated high school. He vanished overnight, showed back up two years later with that same unrelenting grin and new tattoos. He was lucky Ms. Aerith, the head of school, liked him as much as she did; he risked almost four years of schooling and a GPA of 3.92, the idiot. Anyway, he doesn't leave the door locked. Shout if you need me, eh?"

And with that she was gone. A very bemused Roxas settled down in a corner of the short hall, leaning up against Axel's locked-but-not-gone door. The pillow was soft, and the blanket smelled incense smoke, and everything about this place was like a second home. Who could blame him if he dosed off. He _was_tired, after all. Explaining his sudden need for suspended enrollment and early midterms will do that to a guy.

.

Roxas woke to a sound of awkward surprise. He opened his eyes-

And found them staring into the jet green eyes of a crouching Axel. Oh god, Roxas had to remember to utterly shock Axel more often, that look was priceless.

"Roxa-"

"Shut up and unlock your door, Ax." His voice was musty with sleep. "Your bed is a lot more comfortable than your floor and I can wait a minute to yell at you."

Several expressions flashed in rapid succession across the angular face, finally settling on a shaky grin- only barely reminiscent off Axel's glorious smirks, but it was better than the look that it had replaced. The redhead had looked like he'd been about to break down. Roxas hated that look.

The blonde untangled himself from the blanket-and-pillow-corner and winced. Standing required the use of muscles that had been curled up for far too long. He stared at Axel's back as the key was located, the door was unlocked, and the threshold was crossed. Roxas followed Axel in mute hush. Axel was right there. Right there. Close enough to touch. Close enough to tangle fingers through messy hair and hold close, close, too close and too tight for either of them to ever get away. Axel was right there, and Roxas realized he had no clue what to say.

"Say what you know." Namine's soft voice drifted through his thoughts. _What if I CAN'T say what I'm thinking, Nam? _ Memory supplied the Nam-typical response and accompanying smile. "Especially then."

Where could he start, there was so much to ask, to tell, to reassure (Oh god, if he screwed this up…)

"Start at the beginning."

Lea's voice cut through his subconscious babbling, honest and sharp as ice on a burn, like the sound of Axel shutting the bedroom door behind them and not turning, not looking him in the eye.

.

The beginning.

He took a deep breath.

Roxas crossed the few feet of carpet, the invisible wall between them that he'd build, that he HATED, hated as much as the fear imbedded in every line of Axel's tense form. If he pulled Axel around to face him with a little more force then was strictly necessary, well, it wouldn't be the first time emotions had caused the solidly-build blonde to forget just how _light_ his tall, lanky boyfriend was, and well, neither of them seemed to notice the extra force as Roxas' hands fisted unconsciously in the redhead's shirt as if to keep him there.

Axel's head fell against his paramour's shoulder, shaking as Roxas clung to him. They were both desperate, and scared. And maybe, just maybe, in that moment, both of them knew it.

"_What would you say… "_

"Do what?"

"Eh?"

"What can't you do?"

Axel blinked. He drew a shaky breath, pulling a trembling hand through his spikes. After a confused moment, he seemed to catch Roxas' train of thought riding on the tracks of their last tangled not-conversation.

"_What would you do…"_

"Stay here. I-I've been here, what, two and a half years straight?" A bitter self deprecating laugh. "I think that's some kind of record. Rox, I can't stay here, you don't get it I know, but I just CAN'T. I'm going crazy, fading into the walls, the floor. I gotta get out." There was terror real suffocating terror in the lilting voice. A full day after the freak out, the panic was there, barely buried beneath the panic of loosing Roxas. "I wasn't thinking, I shoulda told you sooner, shoulda told you at all, shoulda…" The taller man _still_ wouldn't look at him. "I can't think, Rox, I can't breathe. I gotta move or I'll drown, burn, fade. I gotta-" whatever he'd been about to say was lost in the shuttering gasps of air that shook them both. Roxas sighed into Axel's hair.

_"I've been to the edge…"_

"No one would miss us, huh Ax?" Roxas' voice was soft, his head leaning against his friends as any lingering trace of harshness fled. He was burned out, drained, feeling the darkness surrounding them both sluggishly, a tide of dreams and memories and long-ago second-time-around voices that threatened to carry them both far far away.

_"I've seen what could be…"_

"That's not true." Axel's voice was just a breath against Roxas' shoulder, but the panic was stilling, replaced by heart-ending sorrow. So. Roxas let his held breath escape. They were either not insane, or sharing a kind of insanity. He could handle that.

.

"I would."

.

Roxas whispered the words a heartbeat behind Axel, the words he'd never heard the first time around, the words that he'd been searching for in every lifetime since.

_Cymbals. The closing notes of a fading song._

"What're we gonna do, Ax?" Roxas could feel hot wetness seeping through the collar of his shirt. "We screwed it up the first time. We can make this work. We have to make this work, Ax. I…" He swallowed, mouth dry. Ax, don't cry, don't, don't, you should never have to cry… "I can't stand the thought of walking out, of letting you walk away, of you vanishing again."

"I can't stay here Rox. I can't."

"Okay. I'll come with you." Roxas didn't have to see Axel's leaves-like-summer eyes widen to understand the shocked look on his lover's face. His hands unballed themselves to thread through Axel's hair, pulling the still hunched-over man-child into a rough hug. He felt Axel hiccup against his chest and smiled shakily. So cute.

"How?"

"Let me worry for both of us."

"Okay." Axel sounded just as exhausted as Roxas felt, but there was trust in his voice, and the beginnings of joy. "I never planned on leaving you behind Rox, please believe me, I swear, but-"

"- but you weren't planning at all, just had to get on the road. Yeah."

"Yeah." Axel exhaled shakily. "I'm sorr-"

"Shut up." The scowl was back in Roxas' deep voice, but it was his usual scowl, the Axel's-being-an-idiot one. "Don't apologize. I can't say I get it, the whole I-completely-forgot-about-the-lover-of-my-soul thing, but I don't need an apology. Just… just wait for me this time, kay?"

Axel straightened up in his boyfriend's arms, tucking his chin under Roxas' ear.

"Kay." Axel liked that ear. He would have missed it very much, actually. And that ridiculously styled gold hair, and that deep azure gaze, and that deeper waterfall of voice, and, and, and everything about this firm, solid, no bullshit man. Axel really did like the idea of skipping town _with Roxas_ a hell of a lot more then skipping town _without Roxas_. It seemed brighter. "Thank you." He nested a kiss in the gold spikes he liked so much.

"Always, you idiot, always." Roxas felt his eyes mist as long arms ghosted around his waist, returning the hug he'd refused to break; he blamed Axel's death-grip hug, but that was all for show. "Gimme eight more days." Roxas kissed Axel's temple softly. "The semester's over in eight days, we'll have the car packed that morning and we'll pull out by one."

"Ka-ICCUP!"

Roxas smiled, then grinned, then laughed, a first-beam-of-sunshine-after-a-thunderstorm laugh. Axel, his freakishly tall, inexcusably hot excuse of a boyfriend, got hiccups like mini earthquakes. It was adorable, actually, as was Axel inherent ability to defuse tension. Roxas planted a kiss on Axel's nose as Axel smiled at him, a heart melting that's-MY-Roxy smile which grew into chuckles (albeit hiccup-ridden chuckles). The two of them slid down the wall together, landing in a gracefully tangled lump of limbs, laughing like the maniacs they probably were, laughing in relief, in shocked shared joy, in desperation. They clung to each other, whole, together. Axel wasn't vanishing and Roxas wasn't storming out and what _wasn't_ there to laugh about.

Sometime later (laughing had turned into kissing had turned into cuddling, so what if the two men were overgrown teddy bears,) with Axel's hand comfortably groping his rear, Roxas suggested the get to folding the clothing scattered across the room. Axel just grinned.

If not much folding got done, well, it's the thought that counts.

* * *

><p>"Roxas."<p>

"hn?"

"What is that _thing_ next to Shana?"

A sleepy blonde stuck his head out from under Axel's pillow, squinting against the morning light. "What thing?"

"Come on."

In record time (read that as two minutes flat) both guys were outside, staring at the beat-up well-traveled hunk of metal-and-wheel parked directly behind Axel's baby, his perfect red Explorer. Axel looked like he was torn between melting the trailer and tracking down the idiot who dared park ANYTHING that close to his Shana. Roxas was far more interested in the note stuck under Shana's wipers.

.

Rox-

Zexion called me. I know you'd tell me whatever you needed to when you needed to, so no worries. I'll deal with Sora.

-Cloud.

PS. The camper was Leon's. He upgraded. Saves you housing costs.


End file.
